Configuration files - which is for what

When we are developing applications, one of the considerations that we do is to make some configurable sections that will allow anyone to change how the application run without modifying the codes. app config for window based applications and web.config for web applications. how about for a SQLCLR? they are located in sqlservr.exe.config. This can be located easily by looking at the installation folder of SQL and find the Binn folder. Look for the latest version of SQL (you might see 8.0, 9.0, 10.0).

Now, how these config files take effect is quite tricky. For a web.config hosted in IIS, you must reset the IIS first, thru the IIS GUI or by running iisreset in command prompt. As for the machine.config, you must restart the machine, which means you should be careful deciding to shutdown a machine, especially if it is used as a server. For sqlserver configs, there is no need to restart the machine, as changes take effect after restarting the SQL Server service (Start> Run > services.msc     then scroll to the sqlserver service).